Samir Sayegh, MD, PhD

Dr. Sayegh, a Board Certified Ophthalmologist, received his medical and surgical training at the University of Michigan Medical School and surgical specialty training at Barnes Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis. These institutions have consistently been ranked amongst the top medical institutions in the country. Dr. Sayegh graduated cum laude and received the prestigious National EYE Institute ARVO award in a competition involving over 600 applicants. He was also a fellow at the National Science Foundation Center for Ultrafast Optical Sciences where he lead a team developing applications of ultrafast lasers to eye surgery and leading to one of today's most sophisticated laser eye surgery systems (Research Report CUOS98). Dr. Sayegh also completed both medical and surgical retina fellowships, also in St Louis.

Dr. Sayegh practices comprehensive ophthalmology, cataract, refractive and retinal surgery and prides himself in taking care of all the needs of his patients from eye glasses to eye surgery. He specializes in no-stitch, no-shot, no-patch cataract microsurgery, laser vision correction and retinal disease and surgery. He is on the active staff of Provena Covenant Medical Center in Urbana, as well as other hospitals throughout Illinois.

In addition to his clinical and surgical work, Dr. Sayegh has been actively involved in teaching and research as a tenured professor and scientist. He played a leading role and continues to investigate developments of the femtosecond laser applications to eye surgery. His team was represented at the Council on Competitiveness where the 20 most innovative projects in the nation were presented at MIT at a conference presided over by the vice-president of the United States. Dr. Sayegh has also done some of the leading work on the choice of intraocular lenses for cataract surgery following refractive surgery. His current research involves new methods of treatment of macular degeneration. He frequently presents his work at national and international meetings and has published over one hundred peer reviewed papers. He has several active projects related to eye care and eye surgery in collaboration with other professors at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana.

Dr. Sayegh takes pride in his multiple achievements, but most importantly in the daily care he brings to his patients. Dr. Sayegh is particularly interested in providing a friendly and relaxed atmosphere where patients have easy and immediate access to an environment with the highest quality of eye care.

M.D. (Cum Laude) University of Michigan Ophthalmology/Eye Surgery Residency, Barnes Hospital, St Louis Ophthalmology/Eye Surgery Residency. Washington University in St Louis, St Louis Ph.D. Physics University of Notre Dame MSEE Purdue University MS Physics Universite' de Paris

Post Doctoral Training

Center for Ultrafast Optical Science, University of Michigan. Fellowship Medical Retina, The Retina Center, St Louis, MO Fellowship in Surgical Retina, The Retina Center, St Louis, MO

Research Fellowships

Center for Ultrafast Optical Science, University of Michigan.

Licensure and Board Certification

American Board of Ophthalmology Licensed in IL, MO and TX

Medical Director
The EYE Center
Champaign, IL

Editorial Boards

Editorial Boards

Reviewer, Journal of Cataract and Refractive Surgery

Research Interests

Safe laser eye surgery. Medical and surgical ophthalmology. Corneal Topography, Biomechanics and Corneal Refractive Modeling. Optimal Treatment Modalities in Macular Degeneration. Ultrafast processes and Femtosecond lasers. Laser-matter and laser-tissue interaction. Medical Physics. Geometrical, physical and quantum optics and lasers. Medical Informatics. Neural Networks, Expert Systems, Artificial Intelligence.

Board Certification

Dr. Sayegh is a Diplomate of the American Board of Ophthalmology.

He is a member of the American Society for Cataract and Refractive Surgery as well as the American Society of Retinal Surgeons.

Hospital Appointments

Attending Physician, Provena Covenant Medical Center Other IL and MO hospital (write for list)

Memberships, Offices and Committee Appointments

American Academy of Ophthalmology American Society for Cataract and Refractive Surgeons American Society of Retinal Surgeons

Awards
National Eye Institute ARVO award. Best paper selected from 650 submissions. May 2000.

Best paper of session award, ASCRS 2008, Chicago IL 2008

Tau Beta Pi Honor Society

Sigma Xi Best Teacher Award

Sigma Xi Best Researcher Award

: 1998-2009
(Recent/Partial listing, please email me for 100+ titles)

S.I. Sayegh From Blindness to Sight: The Physics of Vision Restoration Saturday Physics Honors Program. Physics Department. The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. December 2009.

S.I. Sayegh, R.J. Olk, E Peralta Triple therapy Avastin/Dexamethasone/810 nm Diode laser for the treatment of subfoveal occult CNV. To be presented at the Retina Congress, New York 2009.

R.J. Olk, S.I. Sayegh, E Peralta. Triple Therapy for Subfoveal Occult Choroidal Neovascularization in Patients with Age-Related Macular Degeneration. Aegean Retina XI, July 2009

S. I. Sayegh What Is Left to See? Can Nanophotonics Cure Blindness? Presented at Nano-Biophotonics Summer School. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign June 2009

S. I. Sayegh Surprises in Ophthalmology: Good News for our Patients Presented at Provena Covenant Medical Center Urbana Illinois June 2009

S. I. Sayegh VISION Agora Days Course. University High School. Urbana, Illinois. February 2009.


S. I. Sayegh. Varying the A-Constant: Introduction to Customized IOL Calculation. American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgeons?, Oral Presentation and abstract, Chicago, April 2008 (Best paper of session award)

S. I. Sayegh; R. Badie; O. M. Al-Heeti; M. S. Elsakka; D. Barnhart. Subjective and Objective?Subjective Methods of Evaluating Post-Surgical Aberrations. Oral Presentation and abstract, Chicago, April 2008


S. I. Sayegh ?A Unified Approach to IOL Power Calculation Before and After LASIK? Oral Presentation and abstract, American Academy of Ophthalmology, Chicago, IL, October 2005

S. I. Sayegh ?The Limits of Wavefront? American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgeons?, Oral Presentation and abstract, American Society of cataract and refractive Surgeons, Washington, D.C., April 2005

S. I. Sayegh ?Customized IOLs Calculation for Cataract Surgery after LASIK, American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgeons?, Oral Presentation and abstract, San Diego, May 2004

S. I. Sayegh ?Correcting the Aberrated View of Aberration-Free Refractive Surgery?, American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgeons, Oral Presentation and abstract, San Diego, May 2004

S. I. Sayegh ?The Red EYE: The Good, the Bad and The Ugly? Presentation, Provena Covenant Hospital, Urbana, IL Jan 2004.

S. I. Sayegh ?Avoiding and Curing Blindness in America and the World" Oral Presentation, Provena Covenant Hospital, Urbana, IL. May 2003.

S.I. Sayegh ? Taking the Fudge out of IOL Calculation for Cataract Surgery following LASIK? American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgeons, Oral Presentation and abstract, San Francisco, April 2003.

S. I. Sayegh, Ophthalmology chapter in Washington University Internship Survival Manual, Tammy Lin Editor, Lippincott-Raven Press, 2001.

S. I. Sayegh, Intraocular Lens Power Calculation in Extremely Long Eyes and after Refractive Surgery, American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery, Abstract/oral presentation, 2001, San Diego.

S.A. Wexler, S. I. Sayegh, E Polk, Subjective and Objective Glare after LASIK: Clinical Correlates Surgery, ASCRS 2001, Abstract/oral presentation, San Diego.

S. I. Sayegh, B. Hubbard, S. Virata , "A Queriable Atlas of the Retina" American Academy of Ophthalmology Abstract, Dallas, TX, Fall 2000.

S. I. Sayegh, Automated Subjective Determination of Ablation Profile in Refractive Procedure? World Refractive Surgery Symposium (WRSS) Abstract/oral presentation, Dallas, TX, Fall 2000.

S. I. Sayegh "Averting Refractive Surprises Following Corneal Refractive Surgery.? In: Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology May 2000, paper 1681/oral presentation/National Eye Institute best paper award, 2000.

S.I. Sayegh "Effective Lens Position Independent Predictions in IOL Power Calculation: Implications for Refractive Surgery" ASCRS abstract/oral presentation, Boston 2000.

S. I. Sayegh, Nathan Ravi "Refractive Surprises due to Incorrect IOL Computation" In: WRSS 1999, Abstract/oral presentation, 1999.

S. I. Sayegh, Delia Cabrera, Ron Kurtz "A Hybrid Model for Excimer Laser and Femtosecond Laser Procedures Nomogram Generation? In: WRSS 1999,abstract/oral presentation, Fall 1999.

S. I. Sayegh, D. Cabrera, T. Juhasz, R.M. Kurtz "Geometric and Biomechanical Factors in Refractive Surgery Nomograms: Implications for Femtosecond Laser Intrastromal Procedures? In: ARVO 99, paper 554, 1999.

R. Kurtz, K. Sletten, K.G. Yen, S. Sayegh, F.H. Loesel, C. Horvath, H. Liu, V. Elner, D. Cabrera, M. Meunier, Z. Sacks, T. Juhasz: "Femtosecond Laser Intrastromal Refractive Surgery". BiOS '99.

R. M. Kurtz, K. R. Sletten, K. G. Yen, S. I. Sayegh, M.D., F. H. Loesel, C. Horvath, H. Liu, V. Elner, D. Cabrera, C. Eckhof, M. Muenier, Z. S. Sacks, T. Juhasz, ?Ophthalmic applications of femtosecond lasers,? SPIE 99.

R.M. Kurtz, S.I. Sayegh, F.H. Loesel, H.-H. Liu, C. Horvath, T. Juhasz: "Femtosecond laser ophthalmic surgery". (Invited) In: Technical Digest OSA Annual Meeting, paper ThII1, 1998.